Smith travels every day, and is becoming used to her profits evaporating.

"We've noticed that some of the vendors have already added on the extra delivery charge for the gas," added Phoebe Reckseit. She works at Pizza Girls in West Palm Beach. The dough her people are delivering is getting dangerously close to taking a bite out of their pay.

"Some of them complain about it, some of them say it's not that big of an increase, but if you look at what it was a year or two ago....it is," said Reckseit.

The margins are also getting tighter for Palm Tran. The county's bus line is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The rising prices are increasing ridership. "It's starting to put a strain on the system to accommodate the demand," said Chuck Cohen, Palm Tran's CEO.

Until the prices come down, saving fuel is a trick everyone is trying to master. "I choose my routes carefully and try to block everything together. I'm traveling with the speed limit, and trying to do things that hold my gas mileage down," said Smith.

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